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Abstract

The surface ocean is everywhere saturated with respect to calcium carbonate (CaCO3). Yet increasing atmospheric CO2 reduces ocean pH and carbonate ion concentrations [CO32−] and thus the level of saturation. Reduced saturation states are expected to affect marine calcifiers even though it has been estimated that all surface waters will remain saturated for centuries. Here we show, however, that some surface waters will become undersaturated within decades. When atmospheric CO2 reaches 550 ppmv, in year 2050 under the IS92a business-as-usual scenario, Southern Ocean surface waters begin to become undersaturated with respect to aragonite, a metastable form of CaCO3. By 2100 as atmospheric CO2 reaches 788 ppmv, undersaturation extends throughout the entire Southern Ocean (< 60°S) and into the subarctic Pacific. These changes will threaten high-latitude aragonite secreting organisms including cold-water corals, which provide essential fish habitat, and shelled pteropods, an abundant food source for marine predators.

New radiocarbon and chlorofluorocarbon-11 data from the World Ocean Circulation Experiment are used to assess a suite of 19 ocean carbon cycle models. We use the distributions and inventories of these tracers as quantitative ...